Thief’s Return is the first book in the ‘Thief’ series by Tim Jeffreys. Set in the fictional war-torn world of Anhedonika, Thief's Return introduces the character of Jake, a nineteen-year-old pickpocket.

The book is separated into parts, each part dealing with a segment of Jake’s journey and fronted by some nice illustrations, which add to the story, giving the reader a good picture of what the characters look like. I presume the pictures are by the author himself, making him a very talented artist.

At the start of the book, Jake has been arrested and is on his way to Rotuhel, a prison situated on an island off the coast of his homeland. We are introduced to the brutality of the cruel wardens and shown brief snippets of prison life. Jeffreys shows his skill at creating atmosphere and tension here, with the creature in woods screaming at night – we are allowed to hear it but only imagine what it looks like.

In prison, Jake meets and falls in love with Sarah the preacher’s charge, although I never really felt drawn into their relationship, or these two characters. They seem to love each other for no reason other than circumstance – both being in the same place at the same time, and of a similar age.

Jeffreys’ secondary characters are far more interesting and far better developed. Sam, Chit, Crowe, Marianne, and Idha being particular favourites of mine. Male writers sometimes struggle with writing female characters, often falling into the trap of stereotyping them into being useless window dressing or Amazon warriors. Idha, however, is fully realized and will leave you guessing her intentions.

Thief’s Return deals with murder and revenge, love, mystery, and promises made. Unknowingly, Jake has placed himself at the centre of a plot to bring about the ultimate downfall of Anhedonika's cruel and despotic ruler, known as The Lord. The mysterious sun-lady figurine Jake carries with him seems to kick-start these events, and the reader is left wondering how it will affect the story in the next book.

Although Jeffreys’ writing is fluid and confident, there were errors which threw me out of the story, at one point even character’s names were switched. While I found Thief’s Return slow to get going, it soon picked up the pace and I raced through to the end.

Tim Jeffreys grew up in Manchester, England, and from an early age used writing and drawing as a means of escape. His early attemps at storytelling took the form of comic books until he became frustrated by the amount of time this took. So he launched straight into writing and illustrating a novel, a vampire tale entitled The Riders (now, for better or worst, lost). After making it to University and completing a degree in Graphic Arts Tim decided, after much encouragement, to sideline the artwork and make writing his main focus. This would take some explaining in the years to come. By now, though, he had been introduced to the idea of the short story and he started to produce these in tandem with his longer work.

In 2007 Tim published his first collection of short stories The Garden Where Black Flowers Grow, and has since put together a second collection, The Scenery Of Dreams.

Tim now lives in the South West of England, where he likes to keep himself busy by writing short stories, creating artwork, and working on his novels; aswell as holding down an unavoidable dayjob in the health service. In early 2010, along with some friends, he founded the small press magazine The Dark Lane Quarterly.

E.J. Tett is the author of The Kingdom of Malinas, a young adult fantasy novel that contains neither wizards nor vampires, but does have a really big dragon and lots of sword fights. She would like to point out that she does not enjoy wine, cooks very badly, and has never been asked to dance nude in Paris, though she has done a photo shoot involving a camel...in Somerset.

E.J. Tett is also a co-author of the book Casting Shadows, which has been reviewed by The Horror Zine HERE.